The “Henry Corrales Revenge Tour” could be a thing.
After Corrales’ knockout win over Andy Main at Bellator 208 last Saturday, he told the media that he has “vengeance on his mind.”
Prior to his current four-fight win-streak over Main, Georgi Karakhanyan, Noad Lahat and Cody Bollinger, Corrales found himself mired in a three-fight losing streak. Losses to Daniel Straus, Emmanuel Sanchez and Patricio Freire claimed his undefeated status and bumped him down the totem pole in Bellator’s featherweight division. He now wants those losses back.
He took the Freire fight on short notice and lost to the current featherweight champ via guillotine. Sanchez, who will be challenging Freire for the title, smashed Corrales teeth in inside the first round. Corrales managed to take the fight the distance and lost a split decision.
“The three losses weren’t the right circumstances for me,” Corrales told MMASucka in an exclusive interview. “But they were exciting fights. At the end of the day, it’s my job to entertain the fans and I think they’d get a good showing out of those [rematches].”
The men he lost to are all in the upper echelon of Bellator’s 145 roster; Freire is the champion, Sanchez is the next challenger, and Straus is the former champ. Corrales said it would be ideal to get revenge and climb the ladder at the same time. He’ll gladly take other fights, though.
“It’d be cool to fight anyone of them,” he said. “Whoever. But at the end of the day, I have to fight people. If not them, somebody else can get it too. I’ll throw these hands at anybody. It’s all good.”
Corrales’ confidence in potential rematches stems from the changes he made to his life following the Freire loss.
Prior to the Bollinger fight, Corrales started training at The MMA Lab in Phoenix, AZ. There, he trains with Benson Henderson, Sean O’Malley, Drakkar Klose, Scott Holtzman and Kyler Phillips on a regular basis. Training with them has not only helped Corrales physically, but mentally.
“It’s not only that the mats are saturated with UFC fighters and up-and-comers, but outside of the cage and in the game, they’re just good dudes,” he said. “Family-men, parents of young kids. It’s just a great place, man.”
Corrales said the 2018 version of himself is more patient and aware of what’s going on inside the cage as opposed to the 2016, pre-MMA Lab version.
“Back then I was super instinctual and impulsive,” he said. “I always train my ass off and work really fucking hard. But back then it was, ‘I’m going to fucking flip these tires, I’m going to fucking spar really hard.’
“That’s still within me but I’m more focused on the skill-set part of the game. I wasn’t being a martial artist, I was being more of an animal. I definitely haven’t reached my full potential yet. I’m working and searching towards that.”
Corrales is eyeing a return to action on January 26, when Bellator heads to The Forum in Los Angeles. Perhaps we’ll see the first leg of the Henry Corrales Revenge Tour then.
